ALL GOES QUIET IN ARMENIAN CAPITAL
By Frale Oyen
Pacific Daily News
AID=/20080306/OPINION02/803060322/1014/OPINION
Mar ch 5 2008
GU
All remains quiet in the Armenian capital Yerevan.
The city remains locked down following violent clashes this past
Saturday between security forces and demonstrators contesting the
results of the country’s recent presidential election. This was the
worst civil violence in Armenia since its independence from the Soviet
Union in 1991.
The government has imposed a state of emergency, which will remain
in effect until March 20. Much of the capital has been cordoned off.
Residents have been warned against gathering in groups and a press
blackout has been imposed.
Police and military presence in the capital remains high. Armored
vehicles and tanks are parked along the streets. Soldiers stand guard
outside government buildings in the city center and checkpoints have
been set up on all major thoroughfares.
The atmosphere is subdued but local residents are determined to
carry on as normal. Folks are heading off to work, to school and to
the shops. Flower sellers and food vendors are ignoring the heavy
military presence, setting up their tables and peddling their wares
amid groups of soldiers.
On the surface, it’s business as usual. However, just about
everywhere you go, people are quietly discussing the events of this
past weekend. All are uneasy about what will happen after the state
of emergency is lifted.
Main Opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan has vowed that the protests
would continue. He maintains that the election process was rigged
to ensure the government’s favored candidate, Prime Minister Serzh
Sargsyan, would emerge victorious.
Ter-Petrosyan has asked the Constitutional Court to nullify the
results of the Feb. 19 election. The case was heard today and all
motions were denied.
Local attorneys do not think the verdict will lead to a public outcry
or demonstration but many in the community are taking a wait-and-see
attitude.
Officially, eight people died and more than 100 were injured in
the March 1 confrontation, which began early in the day when police
stormed Liberty Square. Ter-Petrosyan supporters had been holding
rallies and nightly vigils there since Feb. 20.
Eyewitness accounts, however, indicate the number of deaths and
injuries may be higher, but under the state of emergency imposed,
journalists and mass media outlets are not allowed to disseminate
any information other than that issued by official media sources.
The violence escalated when Opposition supporters, who regrouped in
another part of town, clashed with security forces outside the French
and Italian Embassies in central Yerevan Saturday evening.
The result: chaos and mayhem. People were beaten. Cars torched.
Property damaged. Businesses looted.
Barbara Edin, who lives close to the French Embassy and who watched
the night’s events unfold from her back window. "It was bloody,
very bloody," she said.
American Robert Evans, who lives by the Russian Embassy in downtown
Yerevan, where demonstrators were throwing Molotov cocktails and where
sounds of small arms fire was heard, said a lot of "reprehensible
actions were committed by both sides."
The U.S. Embassy continues to advise citizens living outside
the capital to stay away and those living in downtown Yerevan to
"exercise caution, avoid any large groups and minimize unnecessary
movements outside."
Some, fearing further escalation in the violence, have prepared for
the worst. Mary Ann Coxson and her husband, who is working in Armenia
on a USAID project, have each packed a small suitcase and are keeping
their passports close in case they get the call to evacuate.
Hopefully, it won’t come to that.
Frale Oyen and her husband, Fredrik, who works for HSBC Bank, currently
live in Yerevan, Armenia. She worked for the Pacific Daily News from
1989 to 1995.